


Mixed Up Shook Up Girl

by Missy



Category: Cry-Baby (1990)
Genre: Balancing Acts, Character Study, F/M, Growing Up, Identity Issues, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison's always going to be a scrape at heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mixed Up Shook Up Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LovelyPoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/gifts).



It bugs her at first. 

And she thinks she has no right to be bugged by it. This is what she wanted after all; to be bad, to cut loose, to make out all night with a boyfriend who would die for her after dancing herself sweaty singing rockabilly songs. And now that she’s done it – now that she’s a full-blown drape – she should be excited. She TRIES to be excited, after all – tries to glory in it. Especially because the six months since the chicken fight had taught her one thing, and that was that ‘drape’ was shorthand for doing what you want to do when you want to do it. But there’s a line between having fun and being bad and losing yourself completely.

And that’s what’s scary. Sometimes Allison worries she’s disappearing into it, losing herself in layers of lipstick and leather.

She frowns at the girl in the mirror as she prepares for another parking date with Wade. And he is still Wade in her mind, no matter how much leather he wears and how many songs he sings and how hard she tries to mentally call him Cry-Baby; the word rolls of her tongue in public but not in monologue. Maybe she’ll wear a poodle skirt with her bustier today. When she does, she gets some odd looks but nobody tries to approach her.

That’s the tough thing about being the perfect, unapproachable mate, being Crybaby’s girl. She can’t really admit that it bugs her, either, so she sort of shoves it to the side and tries to take care of the unfinished problems at play and school. She’s a no-nonsense gal, still at the top of her class in music, English and math. She tells herself she doesn’t have to figure out who she is yet. She’s seventeen and only been slightly french kissed, for heaven’s sake. So she mixes pearls and pencil skirts, wears garters with modest white blouses. She goes to church on Sunday and attends Cry-Baby’s concerts on Fridays; it’s an act of balance, of pretending not to care and actually not caring – it’s a strange high-wire act between expectations and promise. She feels about as mixed up as Lenora sometimes.

Lately she’s been feeling like she’s gonna fall off that mental unicycle she’s been riding; too good to be a drape, and so disdainful of the squares that she has absolutely no desire to mix with them. But no matter how many cigarettes she smokes she still likes Doris Day; she still buckles down and studies, not because she wants to fit in with the upper class, but because she actually likes learning. She has no idea what the future’s going to hold for her and it’s kind of frightening.

But everything feels promising when she and Cry-Baby dance. He might be into petting and tongue kissing, he might be boiling with lust under the surface, but he knows her limits. And as hotly as she boils for him, as much as she wants him she’s careful and wild at the same time. They drive each other to madness in his back seat and when he returns her to her grandmother trembling and pink-cheeked. Someday soon she’ll have to decide between staying with him and going to college. The high wire gets thinner all the time, she thinks, fixing her lipstick.

In that way, he’s rather secretly like a square, well-mannered and kind, a gentleman to the women in his life. Even if his actions were driven by a moral code instead of society, he’s a good guy – a truly good guy, not the sort of guy who wears a façade to convince the world he’s kind and do other, darker, things in secret. He’s the only one who doesn’t comment when she seems the most mixed up. She’s grateful for him, because he’s as mixed-up as she is at heart.

The big question finally bubbles up and out of her during their joint graduation party at Turkey Point. Necking in silence, still tasting hot dogs and French fries and sweet pop on the back of her tongue, she asks him why he’s so accepting of her. The answer is simple and heartfelt.

“You accepted me, and my kin. Ain’t nobody in this world perfect,” Wade said. “If they tell you you’re wrong, well, that’s the biggest sign you’re doing something right.”

They French kiss for a full hour after that. She ends up with her fingers pried between the ragged jaws of his fly. Squeezing him tight all over, she’s so grateful for his love and his body that she cries happy tears into his leather collar. 

*** 

The promise ring he gives her just before graduation (which he does – barely) is made of tin and turns her finger green five minutes after she puts it on. She’s pretty sure the stone in the middle is plastic, a suspicion confirmed years later when the paint melts off when she’s washing dishes in their apartment. But to Allison it’s the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world. She doesn’t take it off even for a second, not when her grandmother raises an eyebrow or when the girls at school gather around to ask questions. 

Things are changing, even while she holds onto Cry-Baby. Pepper’s been talking about moving upstate, lately, where the schools are a little better – someone will have to take care of Suzie Q and Snaredrum’s education, she says, then groans and covers her mouth. She doesn’t sound like her own mother, but someone else’s, a sitcom cliché. She sounds _responsible_. She tells Alison she wants to die every time she hears herself talk that way.

Allison thinks a change will do her good, but she’d never dream of saying so. She just agrees with Pepper’s angst, listens intently, and heads home.

Before she sleeps every night, she kisses the promise ring. Every morning she slides it onto a chain and she slips it under the collar of her peter pan blouse, smudging it slightly with fire engine bright red lipstick.

**Author's Note:**

> Your prompt was so terrific that I wish I'd done more of your scenarios! Hope you like this little treat!


End file.
